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(photo: HowardLake)
Mitt Romney’s decision to pick Paul Ryan as his running mate and fully embrace Ryan’s plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program is looking more and more like one of the biggest unforced errors of the campaign. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, voucherizing Medicare is extremely unpopular and Obama holds a huge advantage on the issue of Medicare. From Kaiser Family Foundation:
The poll finds that a majority Americans do not embrace shifting the Medicare program toward a premium support model at this time. Fifty-five percent prefer that Medicare continue as it is today, while 37 percent favor a premium support (or defined contribution) system with a traditional Medicare option of the sort called for by Republican presidential nominee Governor Mitt Romney and his running mate, Representative Paul Ryan. Support for the status quo is stronger among those 55 and older — two-thirds of whom want to keep Medicare as it is — even though Gov. Romney has emphasized in his campaign that this group would not be affected by his proposal. Among adults under 55, half favor the current system and 44 percent favor a defined contribution system.
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The poll also finds that President Obama enjoys a significant edge over Gov. Romney when it comes to whom the public trusts to handle Medicare. Fifty-two percent of the public say President Obama is the candidate they “trust to do a better job” of determining Medicare’s future, compared to 32 percent who pick Gov. Romney. The president’s advantage has increased significantly since July, when 44 percent chose him and 34 percent chose Gov. Romney. However, among Americans 65 and older the gap closes, with 44 percent naming the president and 42 percent picking Gov. Romney.
This is truly remarkable given that less than two years ago Republicans gained an advantage on Medicare by claiming Obamacare would cut the program. The way Republicans chose to actively destroy their political advantage on Medicare over the past two years is almost unbelievable, especially the way they aggressively pushed their unpopular voucher plan when there was zero chance of it being implemented.
At least when Democrats committed political suicide on the issue of health care in 2010, they did it to pass a significant piece of legislation which should be around for decades. Republicans needlessly committed this self-inflicted wound and got nothing to show for it besides meaningless grandstanding.
I still think how Democrats handled the Affordable Care Act was one of the greatest unforced political errors in a generation, but the GOP quixotic push to voucherize Medicare maybe giving it a run for the title.
36 Comments
Obama will do what the Republicans want, so they can cheer up.
The individual mandate was unpopular when Republicans proposed it and it remains so, but Obama got it pushed through.
Jon, you’re getting better every week. INdeed, it is a battle between the democrats and the republicans to see who can shoot of the most toes on one foot. BUt today’s GOP is proving to be the real marksman in that category.
Jon, did you ever wonder what we’re all gonna do after the election?????
I plan to spend the winter in the fetal position trying to recover from the crazy of the last 6 months. It may not work. :)
It’s easy to get the results you want if you ask misleading questions.
Medicare can’t “continue as it is today”. That’s the problem. The only thing this poll does is show that 57% of the people polled are stupid.
It can continue as it is today IF most people have jobs and are paying into it for many years. It is a program that works extremely well, which you can’t say about most gov’t programs. It has worked for a very long time and the “improvements” they talk about scare me.
Young people may have the delusion that they will always be young, and therefore, government run insurance for old people isn’t something they’ll ever need. Like the Mexican banditos at the end of Treasure of thr Siera Madre”They don’t need no steenkin’ Medicare”. I’ve got a lot of experience w/ insurance banks. Regular Medicare Part A is by far the best insurance I deal w/. If you’re going to be joining in the near future, don’t get suckered by Medicare Advantage salesman.
From the 2012 Medicare Trustees Report:
Head, meet sand.
If I’m not mistaken, the “Ryan” plan was the “Ryan/Wyden” plan until the partisan electioneering started… and I haven’t seen Wyden (or the Democrats, in general) backpedaling from the ghastly neo-liberalism which binds the uni-party from which there will be no escape for the rest of us. Ever.
Whether vouchers or Catfood or some other manifestation of the favored bi-partisan austerity juggernaut, Medicare and anything that smacks of New Deal liberalism will be damaged, critically, by those you will be voting for if they have a (D) or (R) next to their name.
Everything else is just noise.
Here’s an interesting timeline:
Sept. 5. 2012: “Steny Hoyer attacks Paul Ryans deficit credentials” http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/steny-hoyer-attacks-paul-ryans-deficit-credentials
“”My friend Paul Ryan talks about fiscal responsibility, but voted to put two wars on the credit card. He voted to spend trillions of dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. He voted for a prescription drug benefit with no plan to pay for it. He abandoned the bipartisan principle that we must pay for what we buy,” Hoyer said at the Democratic convention. “And he voted against the balanced deficit reduction plan produced by a bipartisan commission—a fact, by the way, that he didn’t tell us in his speech last week.”
and two weeks later, Sept. 20 2012: “Paul Ryan, Steny Hoyer talk fiscal cliff on House floor” http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81484.html
“House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer sought out Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan on the House floor for a talk about fiscal issues late Thursday.
The two men huddled in plain view among the back benches of the Republican side of the chamber and were later joined by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican who ranks fourth in House leadership.
Hoyer “congratulated Chairman Ryan on his selection as the Republicans’ Vice Presidential candidate, and told him that after the election, both parties will need to work together on a big, balanced plan to address the fiscal cliff,” Hoyer spokeswoman Katie Grant said.
No matter what happens in the November presidential and congressional elections, Ryan, Hoyer and Hensarling figure to play prominent roles in any major deal on spending and taxes.”
and then you write: “I still think how Democrats handled the Affordable Care Act was one of the greatest unforced political errors in a generation, but the GOP quixotic push to voucherize Medicare may be giving it a run for the title.”
Except that the Democrats deception was successfully legislated and Ryan’s “may be.”
Cognitive dissonance much?
You know the day after the election the idiots at CNN are going to run some stories, “So who are the GOP contendors for 2016″. Almost as if they dont want to report on important s$%# happening today, like drones, the erosion of the middle class and whatever else thats just ‘not as important’ as sucking up to politicians for the next four years. makes you wanna puke!
So how do Canada and other countries do it? In August, there was an unsolved home invasion in New Canaan, CT, because that’s where the money is. When we have just a few more million hopeless, desperate people, plan on fortifying your house and not stopping for red lights…Welcome to Brazil. A very rich counrty filled w/ people.
Higher taxes.
But the 57% in the poll don’t want that.
Not sure if this was a rhetorical question, but all developed and some developing countries do it the same way. Universal coverage using a publicly administered insurance program (like Medicare), or non-profit, highly regulated private insurance programs; negotiated drug prices or reimportation from countries that negotiate prices; in some cases publicly funded health care delivery (like VA care0; and regulation of costs for the basic package of universal health care benefits. Whatever the combination of taxes, premiums, or employer contributions, the bulk of insurance payments are used to pay for health care, not corporate profits.
There doesn’t seem to be any reason to trust that the President prefers “that Medicare continue as it is today.”
He hasn’t ruled out anything that would end Medicare as it is today, like means testing, raising the eligibility age, or changing the COLA formula.
Nor has he demanded anything that would continue and even improve Medicare as it is today, like negotiated drug prices, allowing a buy-in for younger healthier people, a Medicare public option, or Medicare for All.
Damn Canadians, why havent we annexed them already and given them ‘democracy’ and no health care. lol, I bet The President could announce tomorrow, “Canada is now the 51st state of the US” and the Canadians would be like, ‘ok, why not ey?’
Negotiated drug prices, so we can pretend we’ve accomplished something and have a “drug fix” to go along with the “doc fix”.
Maybe we can ask one of the many countries that have had this figured out for a long time to show us how it’s done?
Good idea.
But then that would “Change Medicare as we know it”, now wouldn’t it.
And the point of the article is “Fifty-five percent prefer that Medicare continue as it is today”. Which is why I said all that proves is that 57% of the people polled are too stupid to understand the issue.
Good points all.
I’m just afraid that with a “lame duck” president and who knows what kind of legislaturds we end up, we’ll be stuck with the Kardashians, Snookie, Tom Cruise’s new wife, I think the Scientologists are programming as we speak, and the endless singing realty shows. I don’t follow basketball anymore until the playoffs. I suppose it’ll be baclk to NASCAR and internet porn for me until 2014 when we start on the next election.
I watched “Last Resort” and “Person of Interest” last night. Those ARE just TV shows right?????
Let’s nor forget Churchill’s quote, “The Americans will always do the right thing, but only after they have exhausted all other possibilities.”
You were not supposed to remember that Wyden was complicit, and if you did you were supposed to keep it to yourself. Another example of the uniparty duopoly’s bipartisanship designed to fuck over the sheeple.
What made Romney think that we who are nearing 70, not in the age group fingered for impact, would be happy to throw our children approaching 50 under the bus? What a friggin’ asshole.
It seem to me that Obama, the self-confessed Blue Dog, too has destroyed his credibility on Social Security and Medicare by repeatedly emphasizing his willingness (even desire) to negotiate away some of the benefits.
Yes retorical. Whenever I travel to Canada; which is more often than most I expect, I always ask Canadians what they think/feel about their national health care plan, since it is so often descibed as ineffective and unpopular w/ long waits by American media. Turns out; they love it.
Yeah. Unless you consider raising the eligibility age to 67 from 65 by Obama, to be an insignificant cut, too.
Just amazes me what people will forget in the service of resolving cognitive dissonance.
I guess I get a low grade for reminding people about this. Oh well.
The nerve of Romney to reveal Obama’s plans when Obama refuses to address this honestly.
I don’t disagree that it has to change, and that it’s an incomplete question, without presenting alternatives of decreased benefits (means testing, retirement age, fixed vouchers, etc.) or expanded benefits (larger pool of insured) or cost controls like drug and other price negotiations.
Indeed. It’s almost like there’s a uniform bias regarding these parties/candidates common to all the front-paged stories this election season. Hmmmm…..
I can testify that the New Zealanders love their healthcare too. Spent some time personally enjoying it myself when I was there.
I have a relative who works for the State Department. When stationed in Belgium, she used local doctors and found the care excellent and the cost eminently reasonable. Others she knows have had the same experience in other European countries. I, on the other hand, am facing being dropped by the second doctor in 5 years who has decided to stop seeing Medicare patients. Not refusing new patients–dropping current patients.
You don’t give up the “tell” until after election. I’m sure a Democratic Republican grand compromise will contain elements of the Ryan plan. And the Democrats will wring their hands and tell us all “to tighten our belts” and “eat our peas.”
Depends on what you mean by “marksmen.”
If a Republican had tried to ram Heritage Foundation Care down our throats, Democrats in and out of public office would have resisted like hell.
Let a Democratic President run on no mandate and a strong public option and win, then renege, and a Republican Health Care plan becomes the law of the land while Democrats cheer and brag.
Sure, little George Bush made a half-hearted stab at privatizing Social Security, but Obama declared before his inauguration that entitlement “reform” would be his priority.
Shortly after inauguration, he appointed the Cat Food Commission.
When that fizzled because he kept his fingerprints off it, he went to the “Grand” Bargain and via a means that was probably unconstitutional. Still trying to keep his fingerprints off it, that fizzled too–although it may be everyone wanted to defer something until after the election this November. Who knows?
Anyway, then we got the Sequester. And just in time to make sure “defense” won’t be cut, we had a “terrorist” attack on our embassy.
I just can’t want to see just how grand the Grand Bargain is going to be for seniors, the disabled, etc.
My conclusion is that Republicans talk a big game, but nothing gets done unless and until Democrats join them, in this case, a Democratic President.
So, to use your metaphor, whether or not Republicans are better marksmen is irrelevant as long as they have no live ammo. It’s Democrats who supply that, while Democratic voters cheer.
I posted my reply 31 before reading your reply 30.
It is very heartening to see so many at this board thinking in the same direction.
Your quote does not support the statement that the 57% in the poll don’t want higher taxes. It says only that they don’t want a diminution in Medicare benefits.
If properly structured and “sold” to the public, a higher tax is not out of the question.
In addition, costs need to be cut.
Our health costs suck vis a vis other nations, especially in light of where our outcomes rank vis a vis other Western nations.
But, forgive me for stating something everyone probably knows already.
We know how other countries do it.
What we need to do is ask citizens in other countries how they manage to elect politicians who still give a damn about the 99%.
‘m guessing it’s not by watching a TV or computer screen!
That was a hell of a long time ago, before the 1% grabbed almost of all the wealth of the nation and of the 99%.
At this point, we have exhausted all other possiblities and we are running out of time.
Parsing whether Republicans are worse than Democrats or vice versa doesn’t milk the cow.
We have to convey to all in office and to all who ever want to see the business end of an elected office, that any political Party and any politician who cuts Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid is going to be in deep doo, period.
And that goes double for their corporate bosses.